The Residential Housing Association is a student-led organization on campus at SSU, focused on providing opportunities for residents to engage with the campus community, while encouraging a more pleasant residential life. RHA represents the students on campus and advocates for their residential needs, and there is currently an open application for students that would like to be a part of RHA. Anyone can join whether they are a first or fourth-year student, but it is helpful if the student resides on campus.

Representatives aim to meet the students’ demands in order to enhance the residential living experience. They do so by ensuring that students’ voices are being heard, and this can involve anything from ensuring that pools and hot tubs are at optimum temperature, or listening to student concerns regarding COVID-19 on campus.

RHA also hosts frequent events on-campus in order to create a more inclusive environment amongst the residential villages. These events allow students to interact with others in their villages and create new friendships through shared experiences. One past event was a spirit week in which all students and alumni could participate. The spirit week had different themes for different days. They had a beach day, holiday day, workout day, pj day, and jersey day.

Elena Williams, who is a representative for RHA, stated that “RHA does focus on advocacy especially by giving a voice to the residents and building community within the villages and throughout the school. In the past, RHA has held events like a Silent DJ event and a Winter Ball”

Along with events, RHA is working on bringing back the “sticker program”. This program would allow the students to enhance their student experience outside of the SSU campus but within the local community.Jesse Magana III, who is the Student Government Coordinator for SSU, touched on what the sticker program is. “The sticker program is where students could come to pay for a sticker and get a T-shirt. Out of that, they get discounts to different local businesses around the area. We want to expand it to where students on and off campus can use them, but we want to figure things out logistically”

Captain Decals, Orange Theory Fitness, Los Gallos Taqueria, Costco, and Cold Stone Creamery are among some of the local businesses where students are allowed to take advantage of the sticker program. Students can get ten dollars off of an elite or premier membership at Orange Theory, and they can also redeem a ten-percent discount at Cold Stone. These businesses offer a surplus of deals for taking advantage of the sticker program.

Joining RHA is a definitive way to further students’ leadership skills, as well as allow them to put their foot in the door with student government or other leadership positions on campus. Magana went on to state, “We look for someone who doesn’t necessarily have experience for advocacy, as it is not a requirement. But someone that wants to advocate, because it is not always easy to be a peer advocate for students on campus. But someone who is good at taking the initiative to do those things. Someone who is not afraid to put in the work but it is not an easy job. Someone who is willing to think outside the box, because this is a different year. So someone who is willing to address issues that are not typically normal”

When asked about what advice she would give to interested students, Williams stated that students should, “just go for it. You can become a voice for students, build connections, and overall it’s a great leadership opportunity.” Joining the RHA Executive Board can help students grow their leadership skills, as they are in charge of advocating for a group of students. Along with this, this helps students to expand their personal and professional development as they are able to easily network within the campus community.